Stewart and Pitt Research Groups
sjp24 The Pitt lab would like to say a big congratulations to Ben Reilly-O’Donnell who passed his PhD viva today. Ben did very well and we are all incredibly proud of him.
Ben has recently started a new position as a postdoctoral research scientist working with Prof. Julia Gorelik, Faculty of Medicine, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London
The FASEB – Trace Elements in Biology and Medicine meeting 2018 took place in Tahoe City, California, USA 3-8 June. Samantha Pitt would like to thank Dr Amanda Bird (Ohio State University) and Dr Paul Cobine (Auburn University) for putting together such an exciting programme. Samantha would also like to thank the organisers for inviting her to present her work. The title of her talk was “Cardiac dysfunction and the role of zinc in sarcoplasmic reticulum remodelling”
On Wednesday 22nd November, 3rd year PhD student Gavin Robertson was invited to attend a British Heart Foundation Parliamentary reception at Westminster. The event was held in the Members’ dining room of the Houses of Parliament and was sponsored by Chris Green MP. This provided a great opportunity to promote our BHF-funded work in St. Andrews to MPs and fellow BHF researchers.
Our British Heart Foundation funded students Gavin Robertson, Amy Dorward (Pitt lab) and Amelie Sobczak (Stewart lab) took part in the 2017 Dundee Science festival hosted by the BHF. They volunteered at the BHFs family-orientated interactive pop-up lab “what’s it like to be a heart scientist?” Here they educated visitors on how the heart works, what can go wrong in heart disease, and the importance of looking after your heart. The event was a fun and interactive way to engage children into the world of medical research, as well as conveying information to adults about the vital work and research that the BHF carries out locally. They found the event to be very enjoyable and hope that it will inspire future heart research scientists.
The Pitt lab would like to welcome Amy Dorward to the group. Amy starts her 3 year BHF funded PhD studentship today. Amy will be looking at how zinc shapes calcium dynamics in ischaemic heart failure.
The Pitt lab would like to thank the BHF for highlighting our work as “breaking new ground” in the fight against heart disease in the 2017 annual report Scotland. We are grateful to the BHF for their continued support of our research.
The paper is out!!! Many thanks to the BHF for supporting this work
Aberrant Zn2+-homeostasis is associated with dysregulated intracellular Ca2+ release resulting in chronic heart failure. In the failing heart, a small population of cardiac ryanodine receptors (RyR2) display sub-conductance state gating leading to Ca2+ leakage from sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) stores, which impairs cardiac contractility. Previous evidence suggests contribution of RyR2-independent Ca2+ leakage through an uncharacterized mechanism. We sought to examine the role of Zn2+ in shaping intracellular Ca2+ release in cardiac muscle. Cardiac SR vesicles prepared from sheep or mouse ventricular tissue were incorporated into phospholipid bilayers under voltage-clamp conditions, and the direct action of Zn2+ on RyR2 channel function was examined. Under diastolic conditions, the addition of pathophysiological concentrations of Zn2+ (≥2nM) caused dysregulated RyR2-channel openings. Our data also revealed that RyR2 channels are not the only SR Ca2+-permeable channels regulated by Zn2+. Elevating the cytosolic Zn2+ concentration to 1 nM increased the activity of the transmembrane protein mitsugumin 23 (MG23). The current amplitude of the MG23 full-open state was consistent with that previously reported for RyR2 sub-conductance gating, suggesting that in heart failure in which Zn2+ levels are elevated, RyR2 channels do not gate in a sub-conductance state, but rather MG23 gating becomes more apparent. We also show that in H9C2 cells exposed to ischemic conditions, intracellular Zn2+ levels are elevated, coinciding with increased MG23 expression. In conclusion, these data suggest that dysregulated Zn2+ homeostasis alters the function of both RyR2 and MG23 and that both ion channels play a key role in diastolic SR Ca2+ leakage.
Here is a link to the paper
http://www.jbc.org/content/early/2017/06/19/jbc.M117.781708.full.pdf?with-ds=yes
The 2017 ISZB meeting took place in Pyla, Cyprus 18th-22nd June in collaboration with Zinc-NET. Dr Samantha Pitt would like to thank the organisers Nicola Lowe, Kathryn Taylor, Belma Turan and Michal Hershfinkel for putting together such an exciting programme. Samantha Pitt gave a talk entitiled “Dysregulated zinc may lead to ‘leaky’ calcium channels in heart failure”
The Pitt lab would like to congratulate Lara Beaumont on receiving the Dean of Medicine prize and the Professor Andrew C. Riches prize for the best lab based honours research project.
Lara was a recipient of the Wolfson Foundation Intercalated degree award when she joined our group to investigate how zinc regulates calcium release in heart failure. It was a real pleasure to have Lara in the lab and we wish her every success for the future.
Dr Pitt took part in the Chrysalis project; an artistic interpretation of pursuing scientific research. This project was funded by the Biochemical Society Diversity in Science Fund and the Wellcome Trust’s Institutional Strategic Support Fund.
Professional local artist Sophie McKay Knight met both young and established female researchers at the University of St Andrews to examine how creativity and imagination are required, as well as integrity and precision when pursuing scientific research. Sophie visited our lab to find out about the day-to-day life of a scientist and to learn more about our current research. The conversations the group had with Sophie and some of current data were interpreted into artwork which formed part of an exhibition entitled Elements, 23 March – 30 April 2016 at the Byre Theatre, St Andrews.